Novellas often lend themselves to a series. If you are planning to write a cycle of stories, then you might consider using the novella as your unit of fictional storytelling. Certain genres, such as mystery, roman noir, fantasy, sword and sorcery, and crime fiction, lend themselves well to a novella length story. By breaking your literary effort into shorter lengths works, you may find it takes less time to write each story and that the ideas and story line flow well from one episode to the next. Character development is not crucial in a single novella, but with a series it is possible to bring more life to your characters.
Examples of well-known novellas include "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens and "Turn of the Screw" by Henry James. In general, these are one-of-a-kind stories that can be told in less space than is required by a novel. Someone today may find that his developing piece of fiction works much better at a length of 40,000 words than the more conventional novel length of 80,000 words. Maybe the best solution is to publish the story as a novella.
Some writers spend their whole lives living in one neighborhood or even the same house; others spend their lives journeying around the globe. Ultimately, the success of these writers depends not on where they spend their time, but rather how well they can write and tell a story. For those who write about one locale, it is quite possible to build up a vast sum of overlapping material. Although the characters may not vary, the stories might include a large group of dissociated events. Instead of trying to put all of this information into one novel, a small collection of novellas might work best.
Novels that take place over a long period of time often have problems with transition between events. One solution to this problem could consist of breaking the story into three novellas with each unit covering a cohesive part of the story. This method might be particularly effective if there are large gaps of time between events. By the way, breaking a story into three parts is standard operating procedure for screenwriters. And it is not uncommon to see the same procedure used by novelists.